Barry Cleveland & Robert Rich – Elliptical Passage

This album had a curious beginning. While digging through my archives, I discovered several hours of improvised solo guitar music that I had recorded a decade earlier—and then completely forgotten. I had played through a digital amp and effects processor with an onboard synthesizer, into a looping device, likely in a single session. Surprisingly, the music possesses an uncanny coherence—including recurring melodic motifs—and when I pitched it to Robert as the basis of a collaboration, he was game.

I trimmed the recordings into shorter sections, and Robert then chose his favorites and deftly arranged them into a 55-minute arc with overlapping layers. His arrangement was essential, providing the structural foundation for the piece and generating striking harmonic and rhythmic juxtapositions.

From there, we began a process of creative volleying—adding new parts, responding to each other’s ideas, and watching the music expand in unexpected directions. The original tracks still predominate in long stretches, but many sections were entirely transformed. By the end, Robert had added piano, flute, lap steel, percussion

Prophet X, and Haken Continuum, while I had contributed additional guitar parts, pizzicato arpeggione, bass, fuzz bass, gongs, and bowed cymbals.

Elliptical Passage spans musical terrain ranging from delicate and contemplative to majestically expansive to borderline cataclysmic—and it’s unlike anything either of us has created before. We hope you enjoy the journey!

—Barry Cleveland

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Barry Cleveland is an LA-based composer, guitarist, recordist, journalist, and author. His seven albums showcase a range of styles from ambient to avant-rock to world fusion. Cleveland also penned the cult classic book Joe Meek’s Bold Techniques, and served as an editor at Guitar Player magazine for 12 years. (barrycleveland.com)

Robert Rich has released over 60 albums across five decades, defining his unique language of ambient electronic music. Rich began building synthesizers in 1976, when he was 13, and later studied computer music at Stanford’s CCRMA while researching lucid dreaming. His all-night Sleep Concerts have become legendary. (robertrich.com)